IT JUST GETS GETTING WORSE FOR GOPPERS!

GOP Adviser: This is ’94 in Reverse, We’re Pathetic. A palpable sense of doom has set in among Republican rank and file as the party begins to lick its wounds from last night's defeat in a special Mississippi congressional election. The loss, which was the GOP's third straight in what had been reliably Republican districts, spurned talks of even greater, historical setbacks in the fall. "This is 1994 all over again," Frank Luntz, a famed Republican communications consultant, told The Huffington Post. "I was there. I saw it firsthand. The Republicans of 2008 are behaving exactly like the Democrats of '94 and making exactly the same mistakes. It's pathetic." Indeed, even the leadership team responsible for shepherding the GOP's election efforts acknowledged that the party's political vital signs were depressing. Rep. Tom Cole, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee, didn't bother to try and put a good spin on the loss in Mississippi -- where Democrat Travis Childers won with an eight percent margin in a district that Bush carried by 25 percent in 2004. "We are disappointed in tonight's election results. Though the NRCC, RNC and Mississippi Republicans made a major effort to retain this seat, we came up short," Cole said in a statement. "I encourage all Republican candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, to take stock of their campaigns and position themselves for challenging campaigns this fall by building the financial resources and grassroots networks that offer them the opportunity and ability to communicate, energize and turn out voters this election." For good measure, talk immediately flared, following the election returns, of the possibility of a Republican leadership shakeup, with Rep. John Boehner -- the House Minority Leader -- and Cole taking the fall. No firings or resignations occurred on Wednesday, but a meeting among GOP members commenced early in the morning with Rep. Tom Davis, a former NRCC head, offering a 20-page memo to shore up the party's hopes. And yet, some Republican officials are concerned that Washington may bring more harm than help for the down ticket candidates "Really the mistake they have made is to nationalize these elections when the national image is poisonous for Republicans right now," explained Craig Shirley, a Republican strategist with Shirley Bannister Public Relations. "What they should do is focus on local affairs. When you are sending in big time politicians from Washington and cater to the national media, you are reminding people why they are upset with the Republican Party in the first place." Indeed, the GOP was hardly fighting the Mississippi battle with one hand tied behind its back. As a diarist on the Daily Kos noted, the party had a serviceable candidate in Greg Davis; the NRCC spent $1.3 million on the race, with Independent groups spending even more; national figures such as Mike Huckabee and Dick Cheney made cameos; and the GOP tried as best it could to tie Childers to the "liberalism" of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Barack Obama. And yet, victory remained elusive. This was the third special election in as many months in which the Democrats have grabbed a traditionally Republican seat. In March, Bill Foster beat Jim Oberweis -- a Republican endorsed by Sen. John McCain -- to take over former Speaker Dennis Hastert's old seat. Earlier in May, Louisiana Democrat Donald Cazayoux won over a heavily Republican district despite big spending from the GOP. "This is as bad as I can remember since post Watergate," said Shirley. "It was so bad in 1974 after Gerald Ford was nominated for Vice President that there was a special election for his congressional district, which had been Republican since the civil war, and it went Democratic... The fact is that these are comparable races. These are all three seats that have been in GOP hands for a long, long time... Ultimately voters want to know what a politician is going to do for them. What has happened with the Republican Party over the last eight years is that some of the consultants have decided it is too hard to define what we stand for so we are just going to paint Democrats as worse than us."

Democrats Flip Another Congressional Seat

This is going to be a big year for Democrats, no matter what happens in the Presidential sweepstakes. Gotta love it!

Huffington Post:

Mississippi Win Gives House Dems Three Victories In A Row. JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi Democrat Travis Childers won a special election to Congress on Tuesday, helping his party to a third victory in recent months for seats long in Republican hands. The victory puts Childers into the seat vacated by Roger Wicker, a Republican appointed to the U.S. Senate when Trent Lott resigned. The win also pushes the Democrats to a 236-199 majority in Congress _ if only for a few months until November's general elections. With all precincts reporting, Childers had 54 percent to Republican Greg Davis' 46 percent. Earlier this year, Democrats captured the Illinois district long represented by former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert, who resigned from Congress, then earlier this month, claimed a seat in Louisiana that Republican Rep. Richard Baker left. Marty Wiseman, a political scientist at Mississippi State University, said if Democrats can carry districts that traditionally have been safe bets for the GOP, "Republican strategists have to be terrified." "If you think about the House and the Senate ... and the number of Republican Senate seats that are exposed, this could turn into something bigger than the presidential race this fall," Wiseman said Tuesday night.

Bush May Be as Harmful to McCain as Wright Is to Obama

One-third of likely voters say they are less likely to vote for McCain because of Bush

by Jeffrey M. Jones

PRINCETON, NJ (Gallup) -- George W. Bush may do as much damage to John McCain's chances of being elected as Jeremiah Wright does to Barack Obama's, according to results of a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

The May 1-3 poll finds 38% of likely voters saying McCain's association with Bush makes them less likely to vote for McCain, while 33% say Obama's association with Wright diminishes their likelihood of voting for Obama. The Bush-McCain relationship does have more upside than the Obama-Wright association, though, as 7% say they are more likely to vote for McCain because of his association with Bush, while only 1% say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of his association with Wright.

Importantly, a majority of voters in both questions say the personal association will not affect their vote either way.

The nature of the relationships is clearly different -- Wright was Obama's former pastor, while Bush and McCain were rivals for the 2000 presidential nomination but Bush has endorsed McCain in the 2008 election. But both present problems for the candidates -- Wright for his incendiary sermons and controversial remarks that have raised questions about Obama's beliefs and his personal judgment, and Bush for his low approval ratings that hurt the GOP in the 2006 elections and may well do so again in 2008.

The poll also asked how Bill Clinton might affect voters' propensity to vote for Hillary Clinton. While the 33% who say it makes them less likely to cast a ballot for Hillary for president rivals the percentages found for the McCain-Bush and Obama-Wright associations, the 18% who say it makes them more likely to vote for Hillary means Bill also helps to attract support for his wife. Just under half say the Clintons' association would not affect their vote.

The percentages of voters saying they are less likely to vote for a candidate because of one of their personal associations probably overstates the true negative impact for the candidates, mainly because voters who might not seriously consider voting for a candidate in the first place (e.g., Democrats for McCain or Republicans for Obama) often respond that they are "less likely" to vote for that candidate. So it is instructive to see how the results compare among voters who are generally inclined to support a candidate -- the rank-and-file of the candidate's party.

From this perspective, the data suggest that Wright may be more detrimental to Obama's candidacy than Bush is to McCain's. Nearly one-fifth of Democrats, 19%, say they are less likely to vote for Obama because of his ties to Wright (only 2% say the Wright-Obama connection increases their odds of voting for Obama). Meanwhile, just 10% of Republicans say they are less likely to vote for McCain because of his association with Bush; about the same percentage (12%) say this relationship makes them more likely to vote for McCain.

It is important to note that the question asks about likelihood of voting for a candidate, so individual respondents may say that Obama's association with Wright makes them less likely to vote for Obama, but they still might vote for Obama. So in addition to measuring vote intention, the question probably also picks up some measure of enthusiasm for the candidates. As such, the actual percentages may best be thought of as a rough gauge of the risks that each of the controversial personalities poses to the respective candidate.

Implications

In general, the results are mixed as to whether Wright or Bush is a greater threat to his associate's presidential ambitions. Among the entire electorate, the two appear to be about equally damaging. In particular, Bush could hinder McCain's ability to attract independent and Democratic voters.

However, the poll suggests Obama may have a harder time holding his natural base of support given his association with Wright, and, as such, that may make Wright a greater threat to Obama than Bush is to McCain.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 803 likely voters, aged 18 and older, conducted May 1-3, 2008. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

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